Adedapo Adesanya
By Adedapo Adesanya
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) is intensifying fights against those it believes are manipulating the foreign exchange (FX) market through cryptocurrency exchange platforms.
The EFCC Chairman, Mr Ola Olukoyede, said on Tuesday that the anti-graft agency has discovered another scheme other than the crypto trading platform, Binance, and its system.
He said the commission has frozen about 300 accounts to ensure the safety of the forex market.
He called the scheme the “P2P (peer-to-peer) financial trading scheme”, which he said operated outside the official banking and financial corridors, saying if this system is allowed to operate without restrain, the Naira could crash badly.
“There are people in this country doing worse than Binance,” he said, adding that over $15 billion passed through one of the platforms in the last one year, outside the financial regulations.
Business Post understands that P2P trading occurs on exchanges and allows traders, willing sellers and buyers to exchange currencies or tokens at a price agreed upon by both parties.
As of press time, it is not clear what the clampdown on this scheme will mean for traders.
In February, the country formed a joint task force, made up of leading law enforcement agencies such as the Nigeria Police Force (NPF), the EFCC, the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), and the Nigeria Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU), to combat foreign exchange (FX) speculation and tackle the issues affecting the country’s economic stability.
The National Security Adviser’s Office, led by Mr Nuhu Ribadu, in collaboration with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), initiated the joint effort.
According to the ONSA, the partnership is set to include coordinated actions with others being carried out by the central bank to halt the FX crisis.
The task force was set up to target the activities of forex speculators, operating both domestically and internationally through different mechanisms, which it believes played a significant role in the Naira’s depreciation, thereby exacerbating inflation and leading to economic instability in Nigeria.
This is a developing story.
